7 ms·

Are laptops really less than 1/2 the performance of PCs on average? I had assumed less, but not less than half.

p12tic 2y ago
Most laptops are severely limited by heat dissipation. So it's normal that performance is much worse. The CPU cannot stay in turbo as long and must drop to lower frequencies sooner. On longer benchmarks they CPU starts throttling due to heat and becomes even slower.
whatever1 2y ago
Unless it’s a MacBook. In which case it will demolish the vast majority of desktop pc processors. My 16core amd 9950X is put to shame by M4 mobile processors.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  Then you do mostly or only things that do not fully use a 9950X. For things that fully use a 9950X (i.e. which include a lot of array operations or of operations with big numbers), the throughput of a 9950X in many times higher than of any M4. A 9950X is not really optimal for a personal computer. The ideal configuration is to have both a mini-PC or a laptop that you use as your personal computer, because even for professional use most of the time you do only things that require very little CPU power, e.g. reading or editing documents, together with a desktop computer with a 9950X that you use as a server, launching on it any compute-intensive tasks.
  - whatever1 2y ago
    For my use case I need Linux, many threads and high memory bandwidth, nvidia gpu. M4 has almost 5x the memory bandwidth of top of the line DDD5 memory when paired with 9950x. If Apple was selling standalone processors compatible with Linux they would sell like hot bread.
Panzer04 2y ago
People have weird beliefs about performance. A laptop can sustain desktop-like performance for short periods (tens of seconds) before they must throttle back because of heat limits. For sustained maximum performance you need the ability to dissipate lots of power for extended periods. A laptop that can dissipate 50w is naturally going to have close to half the performance of a desktop expelling double that. For the most part, there is no technical differences between a laptop and a desktop processor other than the TDP target. For most applications, though, this difference is irrelevant. You need to be doing something computationally expensive for an extended (10+ seconds) period for a desktop to be a sensible choice for performance reasons.

Most laptops are severely limited by heat dissipation. So it's normal that performance is much worse. The CPU cannot stay in turbo as long and must drop to lower frequencies sooner. On longer benchmarks they CPU starts throttling due to heat and becomes even slower.

whatever1 2y ago

Unless it’s a MacBook. In which case it will demolish the vast majority of desktop pc processors. My 16core amd 9950X is put to shame by M4 mobile processors.

adrian_b 2y ago
Then you do mostly or only things that do not fully use a 9950X. For things that fully use a 9950X (i.e. which include a lot of array operations or of operations with big numbers), the throughput of a 9950X in many times higher than of any M4. A 9950X is not really optimal for a personal computer. The ideal configuration is to have both a mini-PC or a laptop that you use as your personal computer, because even for professional use most of the time you do only things that require very little CPU power, e.g. reading or editing documents, together with a desktop computer with a 9950X that you use as a server, launching on it any compute-intensive tasks.
- whatever1 2y ago
  For my use case I need Linux, many threads and high memory bandwidth, nvidia gpu. M4 has almost 5x the memory bandwidth of top of the line DDD5 memory when paired with 9950x. If Apple was selling standalone processors compatible with Linux they would sell like hot bread.

Panzer04 2y ago

People have weird beliefs about performance. A laptop can sustain desktop-like performance for short periods (tens of seconds) before they must throttle back because of heat limits. For sustained maximum performance you need the ability to dissipate lots of power for extended periods. A laptop that can dissipate 50w is naturally going to have close to half the performance of a desktop expelling double that. For the most part, there is no technical differences between a laptop and a desktop processor other than the TDP target. For most applications, though, this difference is irrelevant. You need to be doing something computationally expensive for an extended (10+ seconds) period for a desktop to be a sensible choice for performance reasons.